The Bitter Sword
by GoldenHubris
Summary: Hatches 'neath rushes, Argonian Dragonborn and proud Archmage of the College of Winterhold, receives a visit from a pair of assassins asserting she is the False Dragonborn. To Solstheim it is.
1. Prologue

Author's note: Well peoples, this prologue is the first instalment of what will likely become a pretty drawn out tale. As it stands, I intend to follow the general Dragonborn quest line for most of the story, so if you haven't played the DLC, be warned there will be spoilers ahead. Apart from that, I may tweak the content rating of this fic in later chapters to an M. As a forwards warning, there will likely be strong violence, sex and/or femslash in later chapters. Apart from that, I do not own Skyrim and any of its content, but I do own Rushes, bless her. Reviews are welcome.

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><p>Sound. The sound is deafening. Bludgeoning her senses through sheer, ferocious momentum. It swamps her form, carving runnels of invisible force down her hard body, but it weathers the siege easily.<p>

She pirouettes, spinning. Seemingly without effort her wings catch an upwards current of air and slide into it, lazily floating up above her adversary, every ounce of her conveying blatant mockery at the attack.

Deep within, the strength of her own Thu'um flexes, undaunted by an angry male, a mere gnat. Barely touching her hide with such an overpowered opening move. A territorial dispute, if she would stoop to calling it that. A mere tiff between two large dragons angling for a good meal on a hot summer's day. The hills here are achingly green and rich with game, the woods and thickets scuffing their surfaces hardly proof against the keen eyes of a dovah. The air expelled from her lungs brings with it the taste of the flame to come. Insultingly, she huffs a plume of smoke in challenge at this iota flaunting his Voice.

The unspoken assertion of her dominance predictably enrages the male. Muscles bunching in fury beneath his ochre scales, he surges up at the slighter female like an angry orange javelin launched from some clever war-machine built by the Dwemer-mortals.

Her retaliation is instant.

Long ago, doubtlessly centuries past as counted by the verminous, temporary Joor, she had practiced this move a thousand times in empty skies, for it would not do for a fledgling dov to be seen learning the necessary mechanics of flight in lee of eventual battle-debates and courtship rituals.

Thus, her form is deadly perfect as she arches, wings rising high, angled sharp as a hawk beginning the stoop. The graceful lines of her neck bristle and her sea-green eyes close in anticipation.

There were many amongst her race who viewed her brand of fighting with distaste, claiming such tactics - reminiscent of some avian barracuda - were the foolhardy prerogative of the young.

She knew better. Certainly, a dragon might inhale her own breath, Shouting whilst locked in the grip of a vertical dive. If executed poorly, such a dov might invite death into herself to roast the vulnerable flesh of her insides. Such a dov did not deserve to live.

Her eyes unlid briefly and the visage of her adversary fills her frontal vision long enough to glimpse the horror enter his own eyes. Her Thu'um transcends mere noise, unlike the vulgar cacophony of the male's. Her Voice is not to be heard alone but _felt_, and the world surrounding the two dragons explodes into flame.

Her nostrils are squeezed shut, her eyes likewise, and still the volcanic heat of her breath is near-unbearable. To attempt to break off the assault now would be suicide. The air itself is fire, and only the violence of her passage protects her body at large. Already her powerful jaws are savaging the agreeably yielding underside of the dovah's throat, reverberating with his screams. As the flames leap to the roaring wind and slowly dissipate, she uses the sheer impetus of her body to finally twist aside, jerking her head so violently the male's throat splits open to both sky and whistling air.

A few slow wing-beats to steady her flight, and she witnesses the final death-plunge of that vanquished foe, wings bonelessly trailing bulk until all is swallowed by earth, dust and foliage.

Such a dov did not deserve to live.

And all is peaceful once more. Though the din of their dispute had doubtlessly scared every scrap of game for miles into deep cover, she feels only mild annoyance at this bad news for her stomach. She goes where it pleases her to go, fights whom it pleases her to fight. Wings outspread and stretched, revealing their translucent texture in all its golden glory, she makes for the smudged blue line of mountains framing these emerald lands, eager for sleep and a good spot to roost for the night.

To be a dragon is to live in the moment, always. A proud race; favoured children of that mighty deity, Akatosh. Above such petty, mortal affectations as mercy and leniency.

Truly, _Qahnaarin_ understood her own nature better than all of them, save one.

And then...


	2. Powers that be

It was, Hatches 'neath rushes decided, disagreeably sweltering trapped this deep below Skyrim's freezing swells of granite and ice.

Indeed, since arriving north all those years ago, Rush had reluctantly accustomed herself to the insight she'd never feel entirely the right temperature beneath her pewter-grey scales again. In all likelihood.

Blackreach confirmed this. The gaping, cavernous geode stretched impossibly in all directions, yawning away into eternal night speckled not with stars, but billions of crystal reflections.

Were she not currently in danger of losing her head, the breathtaking beauty of this underground city would have resumed her full attention.

Thought lingering, the Argonian adventurer flipped, twisting her legs in such a way her wiry body spun, tail a counterweight, booted ebony foot connecting squarely with the skull of the nearest Falmer.

The strength of that blow knocked the pale thing backwards, dropping it to it's knees, chest already impaled squarely by the wicked daedric sword.

Not waiting to relish the dying creature's death gurgles, Rush immediately pivoted, slashing her blade from high, severing another Falmer's wrist almost without effort.

Rushes loved the daedric weapon. In times like these, where a life filled with almost-impossible complications ground down to primitive survival, the blade was her closest companion.

It alone witnessed the exhilaration of battle enter her green reptile eyes, felt the vibration of her heart hammering in exertion as she reaped lives.

The inscribed metal hilt of the sword was held in her left hand. Her right was bare - save for the flicker of flames, her second love.

Since childhood, Rush had always borne a strong link to that other-place the soft-skins named Aetherius. Her use of magic had been actively encouraged by the elders of her distant clan-village nestled deep within the Great Marsh. Her honoured father, whom alongside her mother provided well for all sixteen of their offspring, proclaimed Hatches 'neath rushes one day would surely become the tribe's wise woman, knowledgeable in all things tangible and not.

Ach, she missed them. But now was not the time for regrets, either.

Out from the crepuscular gloom walked the latest immediate threat Blackreach had hurled her way since taking the ancient lift at the Tower of Mzark.

This Falmer was different, in subtle ways. Taller, built heavily enough that his organic, chitinous armour seemed mere outgrowths from his fish-white body. By the Hist, he stank. They all did. Far be it for a child of Black Marsh to dispute others for racial appearance, but in her minds eye Rush sensed the _wrongness_ that had all but consumed this by-gone elven race.

For a long time she believed there to be no exceptions to the terrible existence to which the Snow Elves had fallen.

The warlord screams as he launches himself at her, sword whistling straight for her face. Rush, true to her adopted pet-name, meets the charge head-on, blade parallel, waiting for the thing to commit itself before lightly dancing aside.

The warlord brings the sword down with such force the weapon actually dents the gilded Dwemer bridge she and her opponents have taken the fight to. Beneath their feet seethes the titanic reservoir that feeds this underground ecosystem of giant fungi. True, this dispute was less than necessary. Had Rush been inclined, she might have leapt from the bridge and dived into the lively waters, where she could certainly out-swim any land-striding adversary, even these underground denizens. But that would hardly have been _fun_.

There is always a brief moment within the hellish frenzy of battle where victory becomes a certainty when the element of surprise is used correctly.

Rush knew from long experience earned butchering the Falmer in the dark reaches of this land that to underestimate their intelligence and low cunning was always fatal. The Snow Elves, or whatever they'd become, preferably attacked en masse, and through either blood or racial memory most retained a firm grip on magic.

The warlord was blind, as were they all. But by the angle of his head and hunched posture as he recovered swiftly from that aborted charge, Rush knew he could smell her handful of flames, feel their heat and potential for havoc.

Commendable of the creature to take up the defence so soon, she mused ironically, shifting her feet to brace herself. It was a damn shame she'd never intended to use that fire at all.

Pause.

A deep breath, gusting the foetid air down… down into her core… rousing the draconian menace that comprised her very soul.

Pause.

"**FUS RO DAH!"**

Primeval force rips its way past her throat, her razor teeth, her lips. The air snaps and pops with the sudden pressure and so help her, Rushes feels the entire bridge quake and groan in protest under the assault. Fortunate then that the Dwarves always built to last.

The warlord takes the full strength of the Shout. Arms outspread in a parody of flight; the Falmer simply vanishes into the engulfing dark, already stone dead from impact. Ah, the power of the Thu'um! Nothing, no material being could by stubbornness or insanity withstand her Voice, uncaged and _hungry_…

_Hungry no longer. Good. She curls in on herself, wings folded and stomach pleasantly distended from that unexpected elk caught wandering the mountain reaches. Foolish doe! The others would soon learn to avoid this place. Let them. No base animal could escape Qahnaarin on the hunt-_

Nghh… Pain. Gravity asserting itself. Cool metal leeching the heat from her scales. Rush opened her eyes and discovered much to her relief, the remaining Falmer had fled.

_Of all the times for that to happen._

The Argonian warrior, explorer… Dragonborn… sits up and dusts off her exquisite ebony cuirass to take stock of things. Blackreach demanded a decent amount of footwork. Fortunately the Tower looms close, embossed with the grim visage of the dead genius Mzark; a pillar of greater darkness amongst the black.

Her whole purpose here was already complete, in any case. The Elder Scroll; _her_ Elder Scroll… returned to the custody of the reading room, both enigmatic machine and prison for the most potent of all treasures. It was an errand she had meant to embark upon for years, ever since the World-Eater's fall. Perhaps stupidly, she had sidetracked out into the hollowed rock in order to quell the urge to steal it away again.

The sheer temptation! All dragons were terminally attracted towards power. Her own tendency to hoard objects of great historical or magical resonance spoke volumes of the _dovah sos_ running hot in her veins. As for the dragon-visions, these always felt so genuine, so real. Disjointed back flashes from a life lived seemingly long ago… and not at all. They were utter lies. Was Skyrim's celebrated heroine going slowly mad? Fate had surely dealt _Qahnaarin_ a cruel blow. That superior, uncompromising alter-ego summarised all that was wrong in her world. And yet, Hatches 'neath rushes bled helplessly for the vicious, golden creature.

Her soul, spirited away from an immortal existence spent living as befitted dragons. A blessed eternity to roam the aching blue skies, hunting and feeding to satiation, doing battle and taking mates; contributing new deeds of prominence into the annals of her species.

Reduced to _Joor_.

Rush despised the gods.

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><p>Faralda, esteemed mage of the College of Winterhold, glanced up from the book she perused. The crash of something heavy, brittle and <em>expensive<em> grated upon her sensitive elvish hearing, immediately raising her alarm.

What could it be? Since the debacle four years ago that not only threatened to destroy this ancient fortress but also the tatty town existing on its outskirts, Faralda had become decidedly paranoid over every small mishap, every unexplained bump in the night… and particularly any fellow Altmer visitors to the College, too.

Oh it was silly, she knew. Yet hadn't she once assumed those old rumours about the Helgen atrocity, the dragons… all typical Nordic propaganda as well? The previous night, she had even dreamed one of those terrifying beasts had somehow concealed itself inside the Hall of the Elements, ready to devour the students.

Formless cobwebs of anxiety drifted through her otherwise brilliant mind. Just look at the state of her, jumping at shadows! It had only been a fortnight since the Archmage had once again grabbed her things and disappeared to Dagon knew where, but the high elf already missed Rushes' easy company and contagious laugh. There were other things she missed, too…

Well. Pining wasn't going to magically teleport the sometimes-exasperating Argonian back to her. And by the sound of it, she had another clumsy apprentice to scare into submission.

So why did she rise so cautiously from her chair, muscles tense beneath her long, woollen night-robe? Aye, her night-robe! Like as not, she was going to have _someone's_ head before the sun was up.

Feeling vaguely ridiculous, Faralda tip-toed bare-foot out of her room within the Hall of Countenance quarters. The only illumination at this time of night came from the hypnotic blue glow of the magicka font, situated at key points all over the College. It comforted her.

Upstairs and to the right, another tiny noise filtered into her awareness. The furtive tread fall of someone deliberately concealing themselves.

Sweet Auri-El, were they being robbed? Some thief or ruffian managing to by-pass the magically-sealed entrance and skulking into the mage's abode? Such an intruder would first need to wield the power to overcome the wards put up by the late Archmage Aren himself, and do so without causing the double gates to shriek like a hagraven as they were forced open. Such a trespasser would make for a rather fine recruit.

Now thoroughly alarmed, Faralda whispered a few choice words and vanished into the dim blue light. Destruction was her preferred school, not Illusion, but she had deigned pick up a few useful tricks from her colleague Drevis over the past decade or so.

Contriving to be as silent as possible, she ascended the winding stone staircase and peered cautiously out onto the landing. Yes, there. Barely visible, a muted ball of mage light rolled aimlessly across the ceiling of the alchemy laboratory. Shadows moved within.

Nerves singing, Faralda gathered herself and delved deep within, bringing to focus her link to Aetherius, sublimely augmented by her elven blood. The ominous flicker of electricity coursing across her palms had banished the invisibility, but now she was prepared.

Anything that dared stand between her and the safety of the College's inhabitants barely lived long enough to feel the skin slough from their bodies, smell their flesh crisp and burn. Colette and doddering old Sergius need not involve themselves, should their human senses eventually, if ever, grasp an intruder stood in their midst.

Leaping out from cover, the high elf darted into the offending room, electricity near-stinging her skin in its eagerness to rip through the air into a victim; stunning, burning and killing-

"ONMUND!"

The Nordic mage, bent over the smashed remnants of what presumably had once been an alembic, roared out in surprise and staggered back from Faralda in shock, knocking over a stool, a wicker basket filled with Chaurus eggs and a small flask of something smelly and viscous for good measure.

Abruptly the dim ball of mage light winked out of existence and plunged them both into semi-darkness, embellished with Faralda's furious breathing and Onmund's groans of pain.

With a controlled flick of her hand, careful not to overdo it through ire and create a raging firestorm within the very bedchambers of the mages, Faralda lit as one every doused torch, candle and lantern inside the building, almost relishing the various yells of protest as the others were rudely awakened from slumber.

"Just. What. Are you… _doing_, idiot?" she bit out at her fellow mage.

For a moment, Onmund looked as though he wouldn't answer, clearly preferring the option of flight in comparison to attempt reasoning with a severely wound up Master of Destruction.

With careless haste and no apparent concern for his bare hands, he was already scraping up the sticky splinters of glass haphazardly coating the floor, brightly-hued eggs rolling about in every conceivable place.

"Nothing, I swear Faralda!" he gasped, the front of his robes coated in all manner of liquids, glass fragments and what looked like a collection of moth wings.

Faralda breathed out a sigh, somehow divesting her fury for tiredness and the inevitable belief that these sorts of things always happened to her alone.

"I mean, I was just practicing making elixirs so I don't always have to waste funds at the apothecary in order to-" Onmund broke off from babbling and looked guiltily at the smashed apparatus. "You won't tell Tolfdir, will you? He'll - Brelyna!"

Faralda turned and sure enough, the young Dunmer woman stood silhouetted by the entrance.

Brelyna took one look at the shambles of the lab and gave Faralda an eloquent look of sympathy. _Men_.

"Sorry to bother you, mistress," she smiled, red eyes dancing with barely-suppressed mirth at Onmund's considerable discomfort. "But Tolfdir sent me to find you. We have a… situation."

Outside the College walls, the wind had picked up since last Faralda felt it. With it came a dusting of snowflakes and she shivered clad in naught but her sleeping garb, slippers and the thick fur shawl she'd hastily thrown over it all.

Bloody Oblivion, she didn't need this sort of thing at the crack of dawn near the bad end of Frostfall.

"Tell me again what this is about," she ordered Brelyna.

The Dunmer girl was almost out of breath keeping up with the taller woman's strides as they made for the Hall of the Elements, de facto area for all manner of visitors. Her tone was worried. "Two people accosted Enthir inside the Frozen Hearth inn," she said. "A Nordic man and a Dunmer woman. They are wearing some strange garb, I can tell you."

"Enthir thought them first to be prospective mages, the sort of eccentrics that occasionally wind up here."

_Only to be sent packing by me_, Faralda thought.

"But they're not here as students. They insisted entrance inside the College, requesting an immediate meeting with the Archmage, whom they will speak to alone. Enthir handed them off to Tolfdir at the gates."

Rushes. Damn it, she should have known she was being optimistic to think the trouble following that lizard around would have the decency to leave with her.

"Well Tolfdir _is_ Master Wizard," said Faralda. "I'm fairly sure he can deal with them." They both grinned. It was a running joke amongst the upper echelons of the College at the sheer absurdity of raising the bluff, elderly gentleman to such an esteemed rank. Not that Tolfdir didn't have the magical ability… But he was certainly no Mirabelle, and the taxing duty of chief administrator and secretary to the Archmage suited him badly.

Hence, unofficially, when faced with real trouble the College typically sent for her.

Pausing by the weathered effigy of Shalidor, Faralda bade farewell to Brelyna. "Go tell Onmund he'll be seeing more of the apothecary yet," she said with no small amount of satisfaction. "The supplies he'll be re-stocking the lab with will come out of his account. Just make sure he knows how close I was to burning a hole through that thick, Nord skull of his."

All to which, Brelyna smiled once more before trotting off into the hazy mist. Oh, Faralda could be stern when she needed to be, it was all part of her _non_-duties as _non_-Master Wizard. Onmund would at least find a sympathetic ear in the dark elf. Privately, Faralda and Rush had discussed that not-so-secret relationship, and both condoned it with shared smiles.

Shouldering her way through the heavy embossed doors to the main building, she breathed in the welcome warmth and strode imperiously into the lecture theatre.

Tolfdir hurried to greet her. "None of us are quite sure what all of this is about," he whispered to her in stage tones. Rolling his eyes in their direction, the old man indicated what appeared to be the woman.

"She seems to be the one in charge, though. I'm not sure I was right to let them in…" he trailed off.

"It's alright, my friend. Go. I'll take things from here," thus spoken, Faralda placed a hand on his shoulder, indicating he could leave.

She turned to her guests.

The couple had been seated on the stone benches until now, but perhaps sensing some degree of real authority at last, they both rose as if to convey a belated measure of respect. The woman stepped towards her, unclipping the unusual bone mask adhered to her face.

She was Dunmer, as Brelyna had surmised. Seemingly young, though amongst elf-kind appearance wasn't always a sure measure of age. It was her ruby red eyes that alarmed Faralda, in a way she did not quite comprehend. They were _blank_.

The woman smiled condescendingly. "Please forgive our intrusion," she said. "We have journeyed far on an errand of great consequence." She took another step forward, shadowed by the man.

"We are here to find the one known as _Dragonborn_."


	3. Prophet

It had begun with the dreams.

Slow, disjointed images seeping into her sub-conscious with the persistence of trickling water through an old, thatched roof. Strange smells carried upon unearthly winds. Ink. Parchment.

Then the voice. Glory, the voice. It spoke to her and her alone. With a patience borne of millennia, it calmly revealed all the things her once-friends and family members kept hidden from her out of cowardice, and malice. Not without regret, it exposed the petty falsehoods and grievances they had come to believe abounding to her; every last slight and ill-chosen word weaving themselves into a great tapestry of discontent, and misery. In her dreams, she wept black tears to be so utterly alone, existing in a world so devoid of fulfilment and _purpose_.

The voice comforted her. With gentle deliberation, it turned her eyes towards a new destiny, one so fraught with greater meaning she was overcome by awe, and inferiority. How could such a pathetic instrument as she ever hope to accomplish these lofty goals, even wielded by the voice's left hand, right bringing more of the blessed into His fold?

Ah, but the answer was so simple, so plain. Indeed, even the most exquisitely crafted instruments needed care and maintenance were they to be used effectively. Her new life - her purpose - would soon follow her into the waking world, and with it she would purge those who had hidden this magnificent new fate from her. She would _kill_.

Gradually her family, such as they claimed, became increasingly agitated by her presence within their humble, cluttered abode. They numbered three: mother, father and brother. Each would meet her accusatory gaze and dare feign confused ignorance. They pretended to be worried. Privately, her father had cornered her, asked her what was wrong, what was happening, and she had merely smiled at him, teeth bared. He thought she could not see? Did they believe she was still beneath their heels, a slave bearing the title daughter and sibling?

Then arrived the time, and in the night she slew them. As was fitting, there was little resistance to her will. In any case, all were exhausted from their day spent fruitlessly prospecting for new sources of ore deep beneath these wild lands.

She felt it in her bones, the new strength and power filling her being with glorious light as she silently, continuously echoed the sacred prayer; the mantra to her god.

How crass and offensive their muffled screams seemed as one by one, she smothered her erstwhile family in their beds. Upon her own lips she intoned cleansingly: _Miraak_.

Then the journey, the pilgrimage. Not sparing the dusty town of Raven Rock a single glance, she made her path into the wastes by light of the distant moon.

Up, up she climbed. Barely feeling the fatigue in her body or the skin rubbing from her grazed palms, she made her way ever closer to the centre of the island, the core of Solstheim.

Upon sight of the great Temple, she dropped to her knees in reverence, overcome with wonder and trepidation. Shapes detaching from the surrounding, snowy wilderness accosted her. Why, these were none other than her fellow pilgrims! And so together, chanting softly to the open sky and ash-blown winds, they made their way home.

Inside the echoing vastness of the great construct, they reminisced of the glories yet to come; when once more the _Dragonborn_ would walk upon Mundus, re-claiming His rightful lordship over the unjust peasantry of Solstheim, and then… the rest of Tamriel.

Alas that these things would take such time, such planning and dedication. There was so much to do. Quickly did she find her place amongst her new brothers and sisters, helping direct those not yet fully awakened to the wonders of Miraak's gifts. These men and women, as yet incapable of performing higher functions, were inevitably tasked with the Temple's speedy renovation. Elsewhere upon the island, other lesser shrines were being constructed, channelling and hoarding power, worked upon by restless, dedicated hands.

Then came a day when a fellow believer took her quietly aside to deliver the most shocking and gravest of news.

It seemed, far away within the freezing wastes of the Nord homeland, an _impostor_ lived.

A fake! A fiend who dared claim the title: Dragonborn. It was un-mentionable, obscene. Tears of impotent fury had welled in her ruby red eyes upon hearing the sheer magnitude of this slight to their Master's name.

Her comrade's expression had mirrored her own. Disgustedly, he outlined the deeds of this foe, an Argonian to add insult to injury… a mere animal.

By flickering torchlight, their discussion had stretched well into the night. Endlessly they agonised over how best to contain the damage wrought by these deceitful, spreading lies, already well en-trenched amongst the people of Skyrim.

Unanimously, they made their decision: the impostor would die.

Oh yes, she would die! With their knives, their magic and their bare hands they would flay the skin from her body, cut off the head and scatter the remains as carrion. Most of all, they would claim her heart. Together they would burn the bloody scrap of flesh in the True Dragonborn's name. In wake of His arrival, such an offering would become the finest incense.

Puzzled, their comrades had gathered to listen. The howl of outrage evoked by the revelation of a _false_ Dragonborn sent shivers of unadulterated pride down her spine. Such strength and purity of purpose could never be broken.

It was soon agreed upon by all that despite their burgeoning might, the most rapid of responses to the impostor's depredations was tantamount. A smaller party of just two could do in half the time what an army could not. By that very evening, she and her informant had returned to Raven Rock.

Had it really been half a turn of the seasons since last she'd walked these wretched streets? Time had lost all meaning. No residing commoner would recognise her sham-family's murderess with mask donned. Citizens and soldiery alike avoided glancing their way.

At the docks, the boorish captain of the tramp freighter had tried to repel them. In the face of such blasphemy it demanded great self-control not to simply kill him and his crew. With a nod to her companion, she had raised her hand to his obstinate face, confident in the new gifts bestowed upon her. It didn't take long.

Eyes blank, Captain Gjalund Salt-Sage made to cast off.

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><p>Winterhold. The home that wasn't her home at all. To Rush, this far north the bone-cold winter months seemed very much the same fare served in summer. Perhaps only a Nord could appreciate the subtle differences. Oh, she might notice a stubborn sprig or two squeezing themselves out through the hard ground around Last Seed, or a minute decline in the intensity of the mesmerizing atmospheric auroras… but really, what chance did life have pitted against such relentless, bitter cold?<p>

Beneath the ebony plate and her own scales, her muscles felt like they were shrivelling. Her hard, lizard anatomy was built ideally for swimming and climbing, not tramping through icy slush. Unlike men, mer and even the cat-folk of Elsweyr, Argonian bodies did not shiver, nor sweat. In these conditions and without severe exertion they grew sluggish, demanding sleep by a fire and where possible, red meat to gorge upon. Such tantalising thoughts made her stomach grumble unhappily.

In any case, journeys such as hers from the Dwemer citadel of Alftand back to the College demanded far more than a dogged resistance to the elements.

Hissing and spitting, seemingly wrought of the glacial winds themselves, the Ice Wraiths thrived where no other creature might last a day. Observing their graceful capering from a safe distance, these spirits seemed a paramount example of the harsh realities of Skyrim's natural beauty. To live here was to prove oneself a survivor.

Plodding grimly through the snowy wastes, she idly fingered the myriad jagged shapes she'd fought and toiled to collect as a self-imposed kind of compensation for her concluded errand. Even through the thick leather of her ingredients satchel, the deathly cold teeth still managed to numb her fingers.

Walking into the 'city' was by leaps and bounds a different sort of home-coming than those for citizens of other holds, too. In short, Winterhold was as close to a ghost town as Rush had ever witnessed, should one decide to omit the charnel house that was ruined Helgen. Reduced to a hide-out for cutthroats, the murdered town had never been re-built; much like the white-dusted remnants here.

Blithely ignoring the hostile stares of guards, who had never acclimatised to the comings and goings of the new Archmage, she made her way to the beginning of the weathered bridge, single material link from College to town and indeed, the world at large.

She grinned.

Sat cross-legged upon the doubtlessly bottom-freezing stonework, the College's most dangerous resident awaited her.

Faralda; gatekeeper, senior lecturer and Master of the School of Destruction, looked Rush up and down once, before calmly blocking her way.

"Cross the bridge at your own peril," said the high elf. "The way is dangerous, and the gate will not open. You shall not gain entry!" Was that genuine mirth Rush saw gleaming in Faralda's eye? Or lingering aggravation at her unexplained departure?

"Is that any way to greet your superior?" she asked.

Faralda's stern expression quivered for a moment, before breaking down into an answering grin. "You know me," she said. "At least, enough to realise I won't pander to your ego like a sycophantic weasel… unlike dear, sweet Nirya, of course."

Laughing, the two women embraced, somewhat awkwardly on account of Faralda's superior height and Rushes' heavy armour.

Wasn't the College's unofficial Master Wizard freezing hanging around here for Divines knew how long? Absolutely not. Rush was first to admit the Altmer's grasp on magic eclipsed her own completely, despite her own aptitude for destruction, and conjuration. The Argonian had never asked, but she was quite sure Faralda was well into her second century at least. Age just didn't seem an appropriate topic to broach with mer.

Through Faralda's eyes, what did she see? A small, stocky lizard. Grey scales. Calm green eyes that habitually scanned the skies, a little wistfully. Assorted kit of all kinds hanging off her form like moss. A stunted forest of stubby horns sprouting from her cranium.

Making their way together across the intimidating, elevated walkway, already Faralda was verbally summarising the most important snippets of news traversing the College, all with a fine disregard for the further impacts any of these events might have outside their secluded abode. Most mages here fully reciprocated the disdain thrown their way by the Nords.

Finishing outside the Hall of Countenance, Faralda abruptly turned to face her, and Rush knew from experience she was about to receive a grilling.

What did come out surprised her.

"I missed you, when you were gone…" Faralda shook her head pityingly. "No, I won't ask where to. I may as well try squeezing blood from a stone."

Rush dipped her head in silent acknowledgement of this fact.

"I hold the fort as best I can in your absences," she continued. "Deflecting trouble, directing the apprentices and making sure Tolfdir doesn't completely lose his head… But we can't do this for much longer, Rush. _I_ can't do this for much longer."

Faralda's penetrating stare bored into her own.

"I respect the Psijic Order's right to elect a new leader for this College after Ancano's deeds, I do. I respect _you_, Dragonborn. But of late, you aren't giving us what we need."

Like bleak morning sunlight slowly penetrating the thick cloud cover over the hold, anger was beginning to creep into her voice. She saw it reflected in the Argonian's eyes.

"So," murmured Rush. "May I ask whether I'm also not giving _you_ what you need as well?"

The instant the words left her mouth, she regretted them. There were lines Rush knew never to cross with the tetchy sorceress.

In the same moment, Faralda's golden hand snapped up and Rush felt the stinging force of the slap physically jar her teeth. She gritted them.

"I see."

Turning on her heel, tail twitching in ire much like a cat's, Rush stomped away from the confrontation as quickly as self-respect could muster, hoping it did not seem like she was running away. Faralda shouted something at her departing back, words indecipherable but clearly indicative of further issues she was no doubt expected to manage. Well screw it, as Enthir might say. Why had she bothered speaking at all?

Biting her lip as she slammed through the doors of the Hall of the Elements, she considered turning back, saying something, anything, to assuage Faralda's complaints, make the Altmer understand her position; the aching pull of the vast wilderness, the urge to hunt, to explore. What did Faralda really know about duty enough to accuse Rush of shirking? Didn't she serve the whole of _Skyrim_ alongside this excremental establishment?

Negotiating the staircase up to Savos Aren's former chambers, she found to her amazement she was blinking back tears. Ha! Argonians may indeed be incapable of shivering or sweating, but it seemed misery was blind to racial anatomy. In this state, Rush knew she was only good for her bed, and moodily concurred that it would likely remain occupied by her alone after such a warm welcome.

_Fine_.

Shrugging off kit like one of the twisting trees of Black Marsh shedding fruit in a strong wind, she made for the concealed rear of the Archmage's room, sections of ebony armour abandoned in her wake like the black carapace of some giant, dismembered beetle. Yes, sleep was what she needed. She yawned.

She paused. She blinked.

It had suddenly occurred to Rush that, now barefoot and clad in naught but well-worn travelling clothes, the room was warm. Warm? Had some member of staff spotted her return? Had they hastened up into the Archmage's quarters and stoked the embers of her well-used fireplace, anticipating the understandable need to thaw her extremities? Such deference and attentiveness towards her comfort always startled her, not that it was so uncommon nowadays amongst people who knew her identity.

Except here, given her own periodic need for privacy, solitude and peace amongst her hoard of artefacts, books and alchemical studies, the College staff generally steered clear of her little space above the Arcanaeum.

For someone to have been up here, unsupervised…

"Nirya!" she muttered exasperatedly. Just had to be Nirya. Always so poisonously accommodating-

_A scream. It cuts through her sleep, bringing wakefulness alongside fury. Yet another dovah invading her fastness, here? An ally of the ochre-fool, perhaps? Why, she'd-_

"DIE!"

A knife, of Dwarven manufacture, sliced through Rushes' left shoulder just as she made to spin around, senses lurid and overlapping with the outrage of a dragon interrupted from deep slumber. Warm blood drenched her arm.

Oh, how the room spun! Was she here at all, or perched atop a cairn overlooking a green valley, glaring up into the sky?

Who was this that accosted her? All Hatches 'neath rushes could see was a disembodied visage, a mask of bone crazed with tiny spider web cracks.

The mask shrieked again. It was inhuman. Maniacal hatred blended with something resonant and enduring and _old_...

Whoever her assailant was, whatever it was; it stank of magic, roiling off it in waves as the dagger-hand repeatedly lashed out at her face, her torso, her limbs…

Rush leaped backwards, stumbling, furiously blinking the room back into focus. Another blood-curdling shriek, another narrowly-dodged lunge. Damnation, she felt weak! As though she truly had just woken from slumber, fog-headed and heavy-limbed…

"_Cease, Sister! Stop!" _

Who was this, now? It seemed the screeching mask had split into two. This second one sounded male.

"_You've done enough. It's already working through her blood."_

Her blood. Her accursed blood. Dazedly, Rush realised she was prone, slumped amongst the foliage of the indoor garden kept tended within her quarters.

The first mask broke into demented giggles. They grated worse than the screams.

"_Your time is up, Qahnaarin," hisses the rival dovah, looping through the cold, mountain air, presenting a strong set of blue wings striped with old battle-scars and vicious, hooked claws-_

The dragon visage reforms into a mask confronting her closely. Hues and textures shift sickeningly. Bone, wood, metal, green, _gold_…

Her limbs are dead. Rush realises _she_ is dead.

"_Your time is up."_


	4. Calamity

The blow to her head brings Hatches 'neath rushes almost to full, unwelcome consciousness. Followed by this initial assault comes a far more insidious yet equally uncomfortable sensation of being prodded in the shoulder by something insistent and unyielding.

… The butt of a fishing spear?

The familiar, homey smell of water and moss assails her nostrils. Her father, ageing scales framing eyes that forever resemble crumbling ash. Just the start of another day in the Kingdom of Argonia, the land of her people.

Mornings here were never measured by the shifting, fickle light penetrating this deep into the great Marsh. What dim rays made it down through that living canopy of giant trees and rotting detritus inevitably wasted themselves upon the writhing morass of roots cloistered in demented patterns around those mighty trunks. If a ray was particularly strong, it may well conjure up a Will 'O the Wisp. But she was no longer a foolish hatchling. She'd stopped chasing those damn things for years.

"Are you listening?" Her father's voice was grave. He prodded her with the blunt end of his spear again. "Look," he pointed.

Her gaze met with the source of this latest stain upon her personal record of duty. Waving lazily by the sluggish currents cutting through the current swamp floor were the whip-thin, intricate lines of one single vast net. Whole and fully functional, it was impressively long, interwoven cords of plant fibres soaked in resin to withstand the constant damp. Except here before their elevated tree-home it looked as though it had been torn to pieces by a raging marsh troll. Strewn in every direction, spliced and frayed beyond recognition, left to decay in the stagnant waters.

The net was a communal thing, and it was a shared burden for all families to take responsibility for the maintenance of it. Designed for the purpose of ferrying larger game into the main traps, daily vigilance and the dextrous hands of many clan-women kept the net in good repair. Proof to the next bout of frenzied elk perhaps, stampeding a path through the foliage, or the formidable tusks of a mature boar.

Argonian families were typically large and meat other than their staple of fish was craved by all as a delicacy.

With such duty in mind, her father had tasked Rushes the previous day to mend and reinforce the miniscule web of breakages in the net closest to their suspended tree-house abode. Such small tears, but according to her father's philosophy it was always the little things that created the biggest impacts on their daily lives.

Still, he was keeping his peace with young Rush; rarely did her father need raise his voice to any of his children. His reticence was forever eclipsed by his disappointed eyes. Her failure to prevent this kind of disaster likely meant mouths would go hungry this evening, whatever game having kicked and bit its way out through the weak links in the netting, vanishing into the gloom.

_Kicking and biting…_

Rushes snapped open her eyes. This gesture preluded a choking howl of outrage and pain, but despite its force it still took her clouded mind a moment to register the noise had torn forth from her own throat.

Laughter followed.

Flat on her back in the garden of the Archmage's quarters, part of a stumpy canis root digging uncomfortably into her vertebrae, Rush could see nothing aside from the stone ceiling, surrounding flora and two leering masks of bone.

Belatedly she realised the intrusive fishing spear accosting her was in fact the depredations of sharp, cruel fingernails. Bit through cleanly by a poisoned blade, the wound to her shoulder had been ravaged further by her captors, not so much to cause further damage as to simply bring their captive back to full awareness. After all, what fun was there to be had from torturing an unconscious victim?

Her principal assailant - the woman - removed her fingers from the wound with a satisfied grunt, though she did not leave from straddling the Argonian's chest to keep her still. Rush winced to see those pink-smeared grey digits. It was evident that whatever drug the bitch had used to down her was still mostly in effect, but this observation paled in wake of the most obvious dilemma: who were they, and why were they doing this?

Rush had not realised she'd lisped the words out loud.

Quite casually, the woman landed a solid blow to the side of her jaw, snapping her head to the side and causing star-bursts behind her closed eyelids.

Rush groaned, the detached, sarcastic part of her mind laconically deciding she preferred Faralda's version of the rebuke.

Somewhere to the left, the man who accompanied the she-devil spoke up.

"Sister, it is only right this… usurper… knows _something_ of our purpose before we put an end to her."

Through bloody, pointed teeth, Rush defiantly tried to affirm she would indeed like to know, but all that emerged was the pained hiss of a frightened animal.

_Prey_.

Whether the woman heard her colleague at all or simply chose to ignore him seemed redundant, the man appeared mostly content to play the role of spectator. Behind the mask Rush heard a whispered incantation, and she could only watch with horror as those bloodied hands began to glow blue-white; the trademark characteristic of frost magic.

With almost perverse gentleness, the woman trailed her bare fingers across Rushes' finely scaled cheeks, her lips, her neck, her collar-bones… slowly, inexorably making their way to other, more vulnerable places.

Fighting back the urge to scream amidst her captor's evident mirth, she wondered abstractly how she could truly have felt _cold_ on her walk back from Alftand. Such straits felt positively sultry compared to the terrible burning touch of those fingertips. The muscle beneath her scales was palsied, twitching alongside jolts of agony. Desperately her flesh fought to throw off the sensation of freezing solid, but every movement it made was as futile as an insect's doomed struggles to dislodge themselves from the thickest of treacle.

_Prey_.

Damnation! Could she only bring her wits to focus she would tear these two insignificant creatures apart with her magic, her Voice, and the sheer strength of her anger. She was Dragonborn, wasn't she? Distantly, in a non-existent dream-world that nonetheless existed for _her_, Rush felt a rare wave of terse acknowledgement from Qahnaarin.

Locked in inexplicable combat with an imaginary enemy, her dragon-self was currently using her frontal claws to rend powerful, deep gashes across her blue foe's breast armour, yet for all that savagery it appeared to have little impact. Dovah hide was thick; resistant in the extreme to the elements and indeed battles such as these. Rush suspected the golden dov was simply expending pent-up rage. _Her_ rage.

"Prey?" she hissed accusingly to herself. The icy hands on her body momentarily paused.

"NIID!" she spat the word out like a glob of venom.

With a wet crack that bespoke a snapped rib or two, Rushes' bunched fist met with her sadist's chest. Breath all but knocked from her, the woman gasped mutely behind her mask, rocked backwards on her knees as her magic flickered out, hand clutching her middle.

A gloved fist slammed into Rushes' head, courtesy of the man, but she had already twisted out from beneath her captor's weight, and the blow lost all power. Scrabbling and slithering across the tiles like an absurd breed of snake, Rush inexorably crawled back towards her discarded gear. Her sword.

Something feral landed on her back, screeching wretchedly, but she rolled to throw it off, trying to ignore how sickeningly the room still spun. Hands grabbed brutally at her arms.

And just when it seemed certain her attackers had once more overpowered her, the door leading down to the Arcanaeum opened.

_Faralda!_

The impromptu visitor jumped awkwardly, a heavy tome clutched to their chest, visibly startled as they took in the unlikely scene. The two menacing, uniformly masked visitors. Rushes clutched between them, clothes bloodied and torn, one shoulder in desperate need of stitches.

Hesitantly, they stepped into the light.

It was Colette.

Harmless, blustering Colette. Colette who never once utilised any School other than Restoration; who could knit back an apprentice's broken bones faster than the blink of an eye yet could barely navigate her way around the College without becoming hopelessly lost.

Confronted with these two intruders, Rushes prayed to the Hist the woman would have the sense to bolt for the exit, or at least scream for help. Let there be no other casualties!

Incredibly, Colette did neither of these things. Armed with naught but her tome, unable or unwilling to have ever undergone training in the more dangerous arts as a means of self-defence, she hurled the book at Rushes' captors with all the strength she could muster.

Rush, well-accustomed to those strange moments within a fight where time slows, every aspect of a skirmish transformed into a slow, deadly dance, observed as the book sailed past her head. Preposterously, she even glimpsed the title _Beneficent remedies of Eastmarch_ before the volume smacked into the man's concealed face, sheer impact staggering him but hardly enough to disable.

Still, the Argonian was never one to throw away a surprise opportunity when it strolled her way.

Breathing deeply, slowly, forcing her drug-heavy muscles to obey her commands, her body coiled and then sprung forwards like a striking serpent, momentum throwing off the arms of the two assailants. Already hearing the renewed crackle of magic, she twisted from her landing crouch, knifing her legs out from under her to kick out the woman's.

Had her profile not understandably lowered itself in that split second of retaliatory violence, the powerful gout of flame searing from the man's outspread hands may well have roasted her.

Catching the whiff of a priceless Second Era tapestry burning behind her, Rush hunched, predatory, flashing the man a mocking smile.

"Never did like that gaudy Summerset weave," she murmured.

"Deceiver!" he spat. "Defiler most low! You shall not stand to oppose the coming of the _true_ Dragonborn!" He summoned another gout of flame.

In that moment, a powerful bolt of energy flashed past her eyes, ionising the air and slamming straight into her assailant. The man was flung bodily across her quarters into a wall, the snap of broken bones from impact resounding before he crumpled to the ground. Though very dead, his corpse still jerked and convulsed as the electricity grounded itself.

Standing by the entrance, Colette sheltering fearfully behind her tall form, Faralda lowered her hands.

Before taking her eyes off this spectacle of salvation, a vice-like grip grabbed Rushes' ankle, twisting it out from under her and slamming her onto her back, skull rebounding off hard tiles. _Ah, of course_. She might have laughed at her own idiocy to let the lull in the struggle take her, did a bloodied Dwarven blade not threaten to slice her throat.

The woman had pulled off her mask. Looming upside down, Rush glimpsed dark grey skin typical of all Dunmer, youthful features… and a pair of ruby red eyes that gleamed with _absence_.

"Neither of you," the woman softly addressed both Faralda and Colette, "will move an inch, or I'll bleed this wretched animal dry." Her voice might have been the gales blowing in from the Sea of Ghosts, chill with the promise of death.

Faralda's golden eyes were wide with horror. This madwoman held the knife menacing the Archmage with knuckles gone bone-white, as if her hatred of Rush were so strong, an impasse was almost physically beyond her.

Behind the Altmer, wringing her hands in helpless frustration, Colette piped up. "Just WHO do you think you are?" she gabbled indignantly. "Inviting yourselves here, playing upon our hospitality, then… then this!"

From Rush emitted a strangled squawk. The woman had deepened the pressure of the blade. Blood welled.

"Who are we?" the Dunmer asked of the ceiling. "Why, we are _many_. We number more than the flame-blasted forests of our adopted island! We are," her voice dropped, becoming almost sing-song in cadence. "… but prophets. Humbly we shall pave the way for the return of the True Dragonborn. Lord Miraak."

There was a pause.

_Miraak?_ Rushes' mind fumbled with the name confusedly, rendered near imbecilic with hefty doses of fear, pain and adrenaline. Let not Qahnaarin judge her for her weakness!

In the background, she could hear Colette's voice raised in grating protest. "You are mad! _She's_ the Dragonborn!" Did the Breton point at Rush? Helpless beneath a dagger's kiss, she certainly didn't feel like the kin of dragons.

The woman snarled at the Restoration mage in response. As if from a great distance, Rush heard snippets of the Dunmer's retort: _"...and the Deceiver's heart shall be offered to the Master as proof of our unity and His absolute right to rule!"_ Rule? Rule whom, whence, and where?

Stealthily, her hand slowly spidered across warm stone tiles, all but ignored by her erstwhile torturer entrenched in her fanatical ravings. Was it through luck that the madwoman had wrestled her down upon the discarded heap of her belongings? Let her sword be close!

_I do not care at all what authority sent you here, or why!_ Faralda's voice sounded deceptively calm amongst the chaos. _All I know is that you are outnumbered, outmatched and about to be torn to pieces by myself and the others on their way up here!_ Hopefully one of those others was Urag or Phinis. She could do with the help of a Dremora or two.

Her questing fingers abruptly closed upon something cold and hard, but not unfortunately, the hilt of her weapon. It seemed any luck attaching itself to Rush had a strange sense of humour.

The stiffening of Rushes' body beneath her dagger was the only forewarning the woman had. Abruptly, the false Dragonborn's arm flew up towards her face, breath released in a controlled hiss of exertion to mist the Dwarven metal of her blade. Something jagged and dazzlingly ice-blue filled her vision a moment before a deep, excruciating cold seared through her very skull.

_The cold was spreading. From her head and the agony of her eye-socket, a strangely comforting numbness began to flow through her kneeling body. With it came the inexplicable sensation of oil separating itself from water. Almost immediately, she felt less… distant. A voice filtered into her awareness. No… not just one. Close by, her mother, father and brother were calling her name. Her name! What a silly thing to have forgotten.  
><em>_With glacial slowness, she opens her eyes. A humble, cluttered abode. Rough, wooden furniture and a roaring fire. The family who love her. Smiling, she walks into their arms._

* * *

><p>Disaster. Everything, <em>everything<em>, had become a complete and utter disaster.

Faralda sat cross-legged and silent upon a velvet embroidered cushion. Next to her stood the Archmage's four-poster with Rush tossing and turning about inside, fighting off the sheets as quickly as Colette could drag them back on.

Warmth, the human busy-body had lectured. Rush was Argonian. Her kind needed warmth to heal. That and several strong healing potions.

Faralda still shuddered to think about the extent of the injuries Colette had set about to heal. The shoulder wound was bad enough. The smell of it reminded her of mushrooms, and ash. The smell clung to the Dwarven blade as well. Conclusion: poison.

"She's very lucky on two fronts," Colette had primly told her. "Her kind are naturally resistant to many brands of toxin, even the strongest concoctions can be shrugged off relatively quickly. On top of that, upon entry the dagger missed by half an inch a major blood vessel. If that had been ruptured…"

Faralda didn't want to think about that.

But the shoulder was now stable, according to Colette. What worried them both was the gradual darkening of Rushes' pewter-grey scales, as if the flesh beneath had lost pallor and sickened. Frost burns.

Oh yes, it was all a disaster. With little argument from the others who had shortly charged into the room after Rushes' somewhat ingenious use of an Ice Wraith's tooth, the mages had searched the two cultists while she and Colette saw to the ailing Argonian. All items of interest belonging to the attackers had been stored in a chest at the foot of the Archmage's bed, ready for her inevitable scrutiny. By Faralda's order, the bodies themselves had been dumped, unceremoniously, off the edge of the College walls.

Tolfdir had shaken his head at this. What, involve Winterhold's guards? As if Yarl Korir gave a crap about the safety of those living inside of this fortress. Wizards took care of their own.

Now it was well into the night, and she was left alone in her vigil, Colette having wandered off to who knew where. Feeling a surge of nostalgia, the Altmer found herself dearly missing those early days, when Rush had still been a simple apprentice. Before the Eye of Magnus. Before Sovngarde.

Damn, she was tired. Head in hand, too stubborn to leave the stupid lizard lest some other dire threat descended upon her, Faralda cast her eyes to a pile of precariously stacked books close to the Archmage's hastily organised travel gear, selecting one at random. _Beneficent remedies of Eastmarch_, huh? It seemed the high elf's tutelage in Destruction would soon be ousted entirely for Alchemy. How bothersome. Flipping open the dog-eared cover, she began to read...

Abruptly, Faralda jerked awake. The bedside candelabra had guttered out and the room was pitch black. Not a breath stirred. Cursing, she fumbled around for a match or oil lantern before giving up and casting a ball of mage light.

The four-poster was empty.

Belatedly, she realised someone had thoughtfully draped a coverlet from the bed around her shoulders, which had slipped to the floor whilst she'd been stumbling around in the dark. Praying to Auri-El to save her from the hard-headedness of Hatches 'neath rushes, she kicked the already-ransacked chest at the foot of the bed and sat down on the sheets. By her feet lay a note.

Addressed to her in a messy hand she knew all too well, Faralda fatalistically prepared for the worst as she flipped open the folded square of parchment. Inside was inked a single word.

_Solstheim._


	5. Guardians

White-hot and sizzling with heat, the reinforced stone trembles, emitting a tremendous groan under pressure and flame. Then, a cracking sound. It resounds once, twice, three times… before the whole wall caves inwards in a colossal explosion. Several tonnes of stone and debris shriek forth to pulverise any resident of the Temple foolish enough to be standing so close to the unsealed entrance. Screams emerge from within and even his own men and women, warriors loyal unto him, flinch at the sounds of death they have caused. Still, the agonies of these foes were as nothing to the fare currently served above ground. Swiftly the rebels were learning the price of disobedience towards the rule of Alduin, divine Lord of Mundus.

Unsheathing his exquisite hereditary sword, High Priest Vahlok smiled with anticipation.

The siege had progressed well. The end was finally in sight.

With a nod towards sub-commanders Kjan the Bold and the Shield-maiden Risi, his soldiers pored forth through thick clouds of dust and smoke into the great vaults of the exposed underground edifice.

Striding confidently in their wake, Vahlok looked every part a mighty general. Even amongst Nords, he stood a head above most men. His was a figure radiating with power. The wide, heavily-built shoulders, the noble athlete's bearing… all of it swathed in golden armour-plate and purple silk. Only his head was exposed.

Confronted with such a man, it would be hard for any stranger to plumb the true threat hidden behind Vahlok's considerable physical presence: his potent sorcery. Among mortals, only a fellow Priest could match it.

"MIRAAK!" he bellowed challengingly into the gloom. "Justice has come for you, Traitor!"

His company roared approval at their leader's wrath and charged forwards through antechambers littered with bodies into the looming, massive audience hall. Their fervour was not simply through knowing their cause was just; Vahlok's popularity with the common folk of the land in their worship of dragons had all but turned him into a hero of the people. His life and deeds, a legend.

Tonight, whilst his Lords brought death from above with powerful bouts of flame, frost, tooth and claw, he would soon add a new anecdote to that legend.

Before them massed the final remnants of the Renegade's forces.

"Forwards!" he cried, marshalling his reserves, and then:

"**MID VUR SHAAN!"**

As the Shout swept from his mouth, his people before him briefly seemed to glow, emanating his own power, his certainty of victory, his unwavering duty. Courtesy of Vahlok's extensive training in the Thu'um, they were essentially imbued with his spirit itself.

Together, they smashed the enemy.

Blades cut and axes chopped. Maces bludgeoned and arrows flew. Miraak's people were well-entrenched here within his stronghold, but after a long, terrible struggle, after three years of titanic battles and hideous in-fighting, they were to a man, exhausted. Demoralised.

Not breaking his stride, Vahlok powered through into the very heart of this comparatively tiny skirmish. A born swordsman, he swept the head off a lance-bearing brute's shoulders, in a flash swinging around to hurl a fireball with his free hand straight into the face of another combatant.

Screeching a feral war-cry, Risi was right in the thick of it, as Vahlok knew she would be. Dual-wielding two cumbersome looking rapiers, the Sword-maiden was a veritable whirlwind of steel and blood. Beside her as always, Kjan the Bold swung his great hammer like an executioner, the head of his prone enemy popping like a burst grape.

Silence.

Bearing an entirely blood-thirsty grin, Risi swept her blades across her ample chest in an enthusiastic salute. "You've still got it, my Lord," she applauded amidst the laughter and cheers of her comrades.

"Shall we?" invited Vahlok.

Further down they journeyed, into the bones of Nirn itself they fought. Driven by impending defeat and despair, retaliation was fierce, the traps ingenious and the forces themselves… increasingly demonic.

Melting yet another towering monstrosity into steaming slag, Vahlok was forced to admit his erstwhile colleague's power had grown, quite literally, beyond the limits of this blessed reality.

More than he realised.

Disdainfully stomping his foot down upon the throat of another downed adversary, the shattering sound of a spine loud and intrusive within these cavernous rooms, Kjan paused to wipe sweat from his face and beard.

"By the Devourer," he rumbled. "Those creatures allied with this scum reek worse than the deepest depths of Ashpit."

"Funny," retorted Risi. "I thought it was you I could smell." Insulting banter followed.

Suffering only minor casualties, Vahlok's forces made their way deeper down through the Temple, almost believing they were fighting through hellish Oblivion in contrast to their earlier battles. At least those had only comprised of flesh and blood foes. Throughout each labyrinthine vestibule and echoing cellar they were opposed. With each encounter, victory stepped closer and closer. Yet, the end could only truly occur once Vahlok had honoured his calling as Dragon Priest and delivered Miraak's traitor head to Alduin and his generals.

_Show yourself._

Filing into the largest hall thus far, both Priest and war-band were momentarily stunned.

Strewn across the high arches of a distant ceiling, decorating the walls and the very floor… was the legacy of their Masters.

Degraded to bones.

And there were so many bones! Some skeletons were mere jumbles of disconnected fragments littering the ground to be trod upon by unwilling feet. Others had been put on obscene display, once-proud bodies stretched into various poses of attack and rest. These murdered dov, reduced to an insane gallery of carcasses, incensed Vahlok to the point of speechlessness.

That the slain corpses of dragons already dotted the lands was bad enough, but casualties were an expected cost of conflict, even amongst immortals. This mocking mausoleum of bones went beyond the reprehensible. Miraak would _pay_.

Risi was the first to die.

Vahlok's disbelief mirrored within her own eyes, the Sword-maiden had hunched down over a clear patch of ground, almost as if in prayer. Neither he nor his warriors saw so much as a shadow flicker when without warning Risi's kneeling body fell into halves, neatly bisected like some butcher's meat.

Blood misted the air.

Snarling with grief and fury, Kjan spun about, hammer at the ready, but the hall was empty. It was almost as if they had been visited by a murderous ghost.

Beside Vahlok, a soldier gurgled. Whipping about, flames already called to bear, the Priest looked on in horror as the man slowly, damnably slowly, sank to his knees. The very top part of his skull was shorn away.

Vahlok's forces erupted into utter anarchy. Men and women screamed, some in rage, some in terror. Weapons were brought to bear and swung mindlessly at shadows and empty space.

With a horrible crunch, a man's club smacked accidentally against a comrade's chest, breaking bones. Agonised, the injured warrior lashed out unthinkingly at the other and without apparent effort Vahlok's best fighters were reduced to a brawling rabble of frightened children.

Roaring for order; _order_ damn their eyes, Kjan motioned to his lord over the other's heads that it was imperative they find some cover. Spread out within this grisly bone yard, they were exposed at all angles.

The sub-commander slammed his fist into the side of another frenzied soldier's head to help return him to his senses, and raised his hand to signal again.

Like a magic trick, the appendage disappeared. It was a moment or two later before his body registered the loss of a hand and spewed forth a plume of blood.

Now forced to drop his favoured hammer, Kjan clutched the stump and staggered backwards, hunching his beefy shoulders as if they were pitted against no worldly assailant but a tempest.

With terrible certainty, Vahlok, High Priest and loyal servant of the Dovah, realised they had walked into a trap the moment they set foot inside this doomed edifice. With blithe confidence he and his people had charged in with swords raised high and cheer in their faces, confident they had finally come to snuff the last, dying embers of the rebellion.

Instead, it seemed they had walked onto an elaborate stage set to provide some last act of vengeful defiance.

Before his eyes, the same people who regarded him as their father were being reaped down like wheat before the scythe. To his left an archer was blinded, a grotesque horizontal line of red slashing out her eyes before her neck received similar treatment. To his right, a soldier lost his final ounce of courage and turned to flee, only for both of his feet to detach and bring the body crashing to the floor.

In what felt like hours that in reality had been just moments, Vahlok stood alone, centre of a swathe of bloody, dismembered corpses.

Something heavy and wet suddenly collided with his chest, and he looked on in dismay as Kjan the Bold's head rolled to a stand-still.

Silence.

"Show yourself, Miraak," said Vahlok. He hefted his blade.

Whether it was pure imagination on his part or some deeper, primeval warning system hair-triggered for situations like these, Vahlok didn't know. He had caught perhaps the faintest flicker of movement just beyond his line of sight, spinning to face it. Something blunt then crunched into the first joint of his sword-arm, forcing his fingers to bonelessly release their grip on the blade.

Howling, he lurched forwards to retrieve the precious weapon, calling upon his power to summon a roaring wall of fire about his form so that no enemy might come close. In the gloom, the flames transformed the surrounding carnage into a nightmarish landscape befitting of Quagmire.

It was all futility.

When he heard the Words spoken, bringing to bear the Shout that summoned unrelenting force, he began to comprehend just what it was about the Traitor that had truly driven his masters to heights of fury and destruction seldom witnessed before, even under the iron reign of Alduin.

Hardly believing the inhuman strength of Miraak's Thu'um, he understood enough to know such power could never belong to any _Joor_.

As a wall of noise and raw savagery slammed into his body, snuffing the flames with contemptuous ease and sending him crashing into a nearby pillar, did Vahlok mouth a prayer of mercy to his god?

Crumpled upon the bones of the dov, now anointed with fresh gouts of mortal blood, the High Priest felt the lightest kiss of cold steel touch his throat.

"He's not listening, old friend," said a voice.

* * *

><p>Cradled within the liquid darkness of slumber, the words repetitively slithered about her form like some deep sea creature, come to devour all. To escape it, she opened her eyes.<p>

Frea, Skaal warrior and single child of shaman Storn, stood up and yawned. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, it took a moment for her to comprehend where she was; not curled up within her own cramped bed but within a spare in Finna's house. She had spent most of the night keeping company with the grieving young mother, her husband having finally succumbed to the Madness.

Massaging the back of her neck where the previous day she'd earned a glancing cut from a cultist's blade, she discarded her borrowed nightgown and trod barefoot out the front door into a frosty morning, entirely unashamed of her own nakedness. It was barely dawn, yet even so Wulf Wild-Blood should be seen expecting the progress of the hides left to cure in the hunter's shack. Finna's daughter Aeta should be running around somewhere, eternally up to mischief and getting underfoot.

Her own father Storn should himself be seen in the distance, on over watch by the cliffs of Solstheim's Felsaad Coast region or down by the shore, deep in meditation.

Instead the place was deserted.

Late last night, Frea had certainly had her hands full. Storn, locked in his vigil before the Great Hall had collapsed from deep exhaustion, magic all but spent in the constant effort of maintaining his barrier of sanity protecting Skaal village.

Both Finna and Nikulus had hurried to help her carry the shaman to the hut he shared with his daughter, corked potions of magicka and raw ingredients scattered untidily about. Frea no longer had the luxury of maintaining her domestic chores on top of helping feed the remaining villagers. That, and lending her own power to strengthen Storn's ailing cordon.

Somewhere between the outcry and panic of the old man's collapse, and the time spent ensuring his comfort and recovery, Finna's husband Oslaf had mindlessly donned his coat, stumbling across the village bridge on his way up to the ruined Temple. Alerted by Aeta's panicky outbursts, her mother and Frea had taken fruitless pursuit.

They found him as they knew they would: at work with the tools provided by the cultists, mumbling the accursed chant of all those afflicted with the Madness, eyes eerily blank. There they encountered a cultist beneath the colossal fretwork of the ancient ruin, supervising the slaves in their infernal task. Despite her oaths to the All-Maker, it had secretly been Frea's pleasure to end the wretch's life.

In contrast, it had taken all her remaining strength and belief in her father's wisdom to then drag Finna bodily back to the dubious safety of their village. They could afford no more losses.

In truth, theirs was a losing battle. Despair hung heavy within the frigid air, despair so poignant even Aeta, not past her sixth year, appeared muted, grave. They were running out of time.

Less than a week before, Frea had once again petitioned her father in her request to visit the sprawling Temple in its steady re-construction, force entry inside and perhaps uncover some answers.

Her principle reasoning revolved around the theory Storn himself had proposed about the mind-bending insanity that had overcome a huge proportion of Solstheim's mixed population. A theory that reverberated around a legend predating the Skaal themselves.

Who here didn't recall the old tales of a battle so fierce it reduced the island's most impressive historical construct to ruins? To an Outlander perhaps, these stories would seem verging on the ridiculous. Certainly in the aftermath of the Red Year, the Dunmer refugees of Morrowind who had arrived and renovated Raven Rock, scoffed at what seemed a typically embellished Nordic yarn.

The massive skeletal remains of the dragons strewn in a wide radius before the Temple forced many of these sceptical elves to re-think their opinions.

Now Storn was temporarily bed-ridden, it would be up to Finna, herself and young Nikulus to save themselves from… Miraak.

She still couldn't believe it. Not entirely. In this instance, Storn's usually infallible logic was rife with impossibilities. Miraak was _dead_. His was a life lived in the Merethic Era, for All-Maker's sake! He, alongside the fabled Jailor Vahlok had died thousands of years ago, the former remembered only as a blight, the latter a veritable hero.

Frea shuddered, and not entirely due to the cold searing her exposed flesh, oh no. As she quietly slipped inside her house, hearing the comforting sound of Storn's snores, she could feel that unmistakeable prickling beneath her own skin that bespoke of higher forces at work.

Ever since childhood, all had made note of her burgeoning talent as a seer. According to Storn and her beloved lost mother, this latent gift was bestowed upon her as much by the All-Maker as her own bloodlines.

She had hated it and it had shown in her childish outbursts of temper. Part of her still felt that way, and probably always would. Had she been less aware of her duty, her place in the world, it would have been Frea's pleasure to become a hunter, a warrior… even Chief. She had trained in the warrior's arts, oh yes. She could hunt, she could fight; but eventually she must give up her treasured stalhrim axe and in its place assume the mantle of shaman.

For many weeks, Frea's disjointed and occasionally prophetic dreams had become a confusing bundle of she knew not what. Memories perhaps, but certainly not _hers_. Instead it seemed she was sharing the same bloody, terrifying moments of a man immortalised in the songs of the Skaal: a warrior, sorcerer and leader who had, long ago, ruled with remarkable benevolence beneath the tyranny of the dragons.

High Priest Vahlok… _the blade menacing his throat_…

Wrenching open the rickety old closet containing her favoured armour, Frea hastily garbed herself, fastening her gauntlets with an angry flourish and grabbing her axe. Enough was enough. With some reluctance, she flipped open the lid of a dusty old chest once belonging to her mother, retrieving a hefty sack of coin. Her village provided for itself and mostly spurned the pointless stuff, but now and then they did find a use for it.

With the Skaal smith Baldor enthralled, meaty hands occupied with the fine etching of a profane monument, Frea conceded the supplies she required to commence her un-approved mission must come from elsewhere. On Solstheim, elsewhere meant Raven Rock.

She only hoped Storn would forgive her, when she arrived back. Fur-trimmed boots thudding through snow, she prayed to the All-Maker she _would_ come back, strong and certain, bearing a way to save her people.


	6. Island

Qahnaarin awoke in fitful spasms.

Not a true awakening, of course. That would entail wallowing in her mortal flesh once again. Disgusting. And yet when all was said and done, it was not her _little sister_ laid low.

Bruised, scorched and parched; left to die - or live - in disgrace and ignominy.

Somewhere above her, the squabbling sounds of gulls filters down into her senses, full of wind and salt. The offshore breeze picks up and sweeps aloft tiny whorls of sand and grit, aggravating her nostrils.

With aching slowness, the dragon lifts her head out of the dirt. The great crest upon her brow, usually a source of smug vanity, weighs down her skull like an ungainly helm.

Blinking eyes crusted with congealed blood, she observes the flat plateau she sprawls upon and thinks of her earlier mountain fastness, emitting a low rumble of misery.

She does not remember how she came to be here.

Qahnaarin's world constantly shifted, sifting through memory, past, present and future like liquid, or smoke. Thanks largely to the Father of Time, nothing was solid or certain. Through many instances, many false-awakenings, she felt much like a child's inflated balloon, cut adrift to wander without meaning, or purpose.

After defying death against impossible odds and defeating a god_,_ it seemed her destiny had left her to fade into obscurity.

Indeed, through the physical decline of her earthly counterpart she would one day do more than fade. She would cease to exist. Die.

Death was a difficult subject for dragons. A potent poison consumed accidentally or deliberately might well succeed in killing a dovah, presuming they did not utilise any healing magicks or bully subservient mortals into aiding them… But ageing like those selfsame mortals was a neigh-on incomprehensible topic.

How would Qahnaarin meet her end? Would she know Death when he finally came for her? Would she be old and asleep in a warm bed somewhere or violently thrown into his arms, killed?

Or would, as had very almost been the case, she die in battle against another pseudo-dragon? She doubted a body, discounting how weak and pathetic it may already be, could survive without a _soul_.

With a suppressed growl of pain, Qahnaarin heaved her considerable bulk upright, uncomfortably aware of the protesting creaks of bone, the pull of sprained muscles. Wrists braced against the loamy soil, claw-thumbs dug in, her wings extended out behind her and stretched instinctively, twin masts of membranous gold, beautiful enough to strike a chord in the heart of any poet… when not besmirched by blood and filth.

Blinking clear her eyes, she carefully snuffed the air for any signs of company. None, save for the expected presence of lesser creatures: birds and insects and other small things holed within the encroaching scrub. To have been laid so low…

She did not know how long the battle had raged against the blue male who had so rudely awoken her. Were it for a day or a week meant little really, save that in event of the latter there were ready sources of emergency rations available. She knew there were several mortal hamlets nestled within her former hunting grounds that would have served that end admirably.

She did recall it had begun in the night, dawn perhaps an hour or two away. The blue dragon had inexplicably known her name, using it as the bait to draw the female, force her to accept his challenge. It had incensed Qahnaarin to no end that he had not offered his. Whoever her adversary had been, he had not deigned follow the simplest measures of protocol or honour in their debate. Invading her territory and attacking her in the dead of night while she slept? Scum.

But for all her dignified outrage and bluster, she had barely escaped the encounter alive.

The male had been big and scarred, a veteran almost dwarfing the ochre fool she had slaughtered previously; Qahnaarin was not so easily intimidated by size, however. His Thu'um presented a more dangerous facet: to her very unpleasant surprise she could barely match it. Overall, the stakes of their mêlée were well set for a long, drawn out struggle.

And so, for interminable time they had fought, the very sky seeming to tear and split under the power and ferocity of combat. It had not gone well.

Qahnaarin had barrelled in overconfident, too arrogant in her own warrior's prowess to consider the male might have expected just this reaction from his younger, female opponent. Each powerful slash of her claws the dovah deflected upon the heaviest portions of his dark blue armour, sustaining very little damage that could not be shrugged off completely. Where her movements were sinuous as a striking adder, reliant on speed and greater dexterity, his defence was almost lazy, meeting her attacks head-on, letting them be deflected by sheer mass or slapped down by one vast, lapis hued wing. Each time one of her attempts to slide past his considerable guard failed, Qahnaarin's rage increased, eyes narrowed to poisonous slits and teeth bared in a snarl of hatred.

She had screamed at him, fire belching forth from her jaws as unintentionally as it proved ineffective. In the brief pause following her Shout, where no sane enemy would dare present themselves too closely for danger of roasting, the male had struck.

For a second or so, the blow appeared to have been deflected by Qahnaarin's thick crown of hardened scale and bone, even if the force alone had spun her through the air, but abruptly her vision was blinded by blood.

The male had opened up a long, deep gash diagonally above her brow, a hair's breadth away from one large green eye. What's more, she was certain it had been a deliberate choice, an Ancient's condescending way of informing a fledgling of their own inferiority, perhaps even a deliberate offering of compromise in exchange for her life.

Qahnaarin spat upon such proposals.

Tearing through the air, she shot straight for his head in retaliation, calling upon Unrelenting Force, legs braced for a forwards impact with the intent of latching on, dismissing the threat of his size so that she might rip his throat out.

The male seemed to realise her tactics, spinning to face the charge directly, meeting her Voice with his own, cacophonous, bone-crushing force melding to one, then dissipating.

When the collision did come, he was more than ready for her. Far too late to abort her attack, she felt the brush of fear sympathetic to her own upon her mind like a distant wind. _Prey_.

The sharp shock of teeth ravaging the very base of her throat forced a shrill howl of disbelieving agony out from Qahnaarin, wings thrashing up a hurricane around the larger dovah's head, inflicting a thousand tiny tears with her frontal rending claws. The male completely ignored them.

Spitting her out of his mouth like an offensive piece of meat, her adversary flapped his wings strongly enough to bat her away, accelerating his victim's impending fall.

How many times had Qahnaarin practiced a stoop… a plunge, a death-dealing assault from above? Yet it seemed in that terrible moment the dragon had never quite noticed the stomach-shrivelling _magnitude_ of the sky before, never looked down upon the distant lands of Nirn and considered what an impact with them at high speed might entail.

With furious certainty, she suddenly realised from whence such mortal observations had sprung.

Hardly aware of the keening wail emerging from her own torn throat, in that selfsame worst possible moment Qahnaarin became hideously aware of her Other Self; the freezing cold assault on her scales, the spinning sickness of her surroundings. Prey.

She was NOT prey!

Silently screaming this at her feeble counterpart, hoping against hope the wretched thing had enough mind to take heed, Qahnaarin flapped her wings with renewed strength, attempting to stem the outflow of blood from her wounds through willpower alone.

Above her resounded the male's roar; it seemed sight of her renewed vigour had incensed him to end what he'd started.

A detached part of her understood, not without a twist of irony, the veteran was almost certainly about to perform her own favourite trick against her. If he didn't finish the job on her throat, trapped under the force of his weight and the howling air pressure her neck would snap. She simply could not let that happen.

Carefully maintaining some pretence of total helplessness, disturbingly easy given her straits, Qahnaarin twisted her airborne body, minutely altering the tension of muscles, the angle of wings so that her fall rather became a semi-controlled plummet. Directly above her, the blue dovah made his move.

Taking the howling air into her lungs with deep, painstakingly slow gulps, flooding her body with oxygen, she had watched with necessary detachment the next events unfold, almost in slow motion.

Her adversary had transformed from a distant blur across the heavens to an engulfing totality, filling her vision. As she unfeelingly acknowledged the near-killing impetus of his feet and talons and mouth upon her body, breaking a fair few ribs on impact, her mind consumed itself in the tiniest of details.

The delicate, secondary colouring of the male's armour; lapis hued indeed, molten silver tipping each individual scale. The harshness of his breath, akin to a roaring tempest in her ears. She smelt a powerful magick upon him. And the eyes. The eyes unbalanced her. Perhaps some small, suspicious part of her enemy wondered at Qahnaarin's seeming docility, even though her fate was sealed. Would any self-respecting female remain so quiescent in a male's grasp?

And so, though not a syllable emerged from his throat, those black, void-cold eyes asked the question, glittering with intelligence and enquiry. With the chosen Words, not so much Shout as whisper, Qahnaarin gave answer.

_Feim._

The golden dragon dissolved in his grip, in an instant becoming as substantial as a gossamer thread of spider's silk, drifting without anchor.

Deaf to the furious, thwarted roar of her assailant, her ghostly semblance had proceeded to float unhurriedly down. Away from the fray, the challenger and any lingering pain… at least for a little while. Down unto the world below.

Like a descending fog, Ethereal-Qahnaarin had entered a dense, coniferous forest. Leaves and branches alike failed to acknowledge her passage with as much as a tiny shudder. By the time her mist-form reached the woodland floor, her concentration was exhausted.

Regaining solidity bit by bit, the female had allowed herself a moment or so to relax, fully aware of the danger of doing so when she was not, literally, out of the proverbial woods. Her fretting was well-grounded.

Above her, unseen through the encompassing density of bark and foliage, the male was circling. He could have copied her act, descending to her level, but well did he know Qahnaarin would be long gone by then. The forest had become her shield. Unfortunately for his brash if not sly prey, that shield bore a deadly weakness.

When she heard the vindictive blast of his Voice turned flame, she had for a brief, stark second known terror.

Then all sense of the world had drowned in fire.

Above her now, only the gulls still circled. To her sides, smouldering timber had been replaced with the soothing bustle of the ocean. Yet inexplicably the scent of ash in this place lingered. Perhaps it was merely the reek of her wounds.

As Qahnaarin slowly recuperated upon that nameless and deteriorated scrap of coast, she brooded, and came to a decision.

She would discount her situation, her identity and even the dream world she existed in itself if she must: all that really mattered now was the blue dragon. His was insult without provocation, murderous intent without reasoning. She would find him, if she had to tear her little sister's mind apart in the crucible of her jaws! She would never take the mantle of victim.

Privately relishing the salty air and the background murmur of life upon the shore, she began a careful preening of her battered and bloody scaling. For now, she was content to plot, through effort forcing her anger down to that of a seething cauldron... or a dormant volcano.

How the tables had turned for the _Vanquisher_.

* * *

><p>"Hey. HEY! Argonian, wake up!"<p>

The voice was familiar. She had definitely heard it before.

"Come on!" the voice insisted.

"Ralof?" mumbled Hatches 'neath rushes.

"Never heard of him, lady," asserted the voice.

Her vision cleared and suddenly she was upon a rickety old ship, miraculous in the fact it was still perfectly sea-worthy. Standing over her was the captain, one Gjalund Salt-Sage. She wondered that she had actually remembered the Nordic embroidery.

"Well, here we are," smiled Salt-Sage.

Feeling much like a sack full of old bones left out in the elements for far too long, Rush sat up upon the patch of damp deck she'd claimed for the duration of her journey, instinctively curling her tail around her legs to avoid having it trodden on. Again. Her shoulder throbbed, but she purposefully ignored it. Had someone previously informed her she'd be traversing the Sea of Ghosts in the depths of a Skyrim Frostfall, in the company of a rag-tag band of previously-hypnotised sailors with terrible notions of hygiene, she'd have been tempted to freeze them solid with her Thu'um.

"Mighty impressive, 'ain it?" embellished young Sogrlaf, stepping smartly over the Argonian hauling a coil of fraying ropes. The odour of old sweat seemed to linger after him for an obscene amount of time.

Slowly, Rush took a hold of her bearings, gazing about her with a traveller's trepidation that their destination might prove just as unpleasant as the journey. At first glance, her summation appeared correct.

Rapidly approaching Gjalund's ship from the bows loomed an island. Grey as granite it was, reminiscent of the sky above Winterhold or her own scales. A small, sneaky side of her observed this with a hunter's approval of natural camouflage. She had never been much good with a bow, but in her opinion there was no reason why a part mage, part swordswoman couldn't combine flinging fireballs and filleting her enemies with a bit of stealth, now and then.

Squinting her eyes, she made out in miniature an untidy port bearing precious few other vessels, behind which hunched clusters of run-down old warehouses and buildings.

Even on her better days, her opinion of the place would have been a variant of 'cesspit'.

That said, as Gjalund and his hands expertly swung the _Northern Maiden_ into harbour, filtering out beneath the fog of lingering sleep and her peripheral vision emerged a truly spectacular sight.

"Damn!" swore Rush, briefly overwhelmed by a rare instant of awe. She hadn't felt like this since the first time she set foot in Blackreach. "It's got big!"

Gjalund made a show of breaking from his tasks, squinting mockingly into the distance with a hand over his brow. To the east of the mangy freighter towered the fabled mountain of fire.

Viewed off the coast of Solstheim, Red Mountain was a magnificent reminder of the Aedra's creations. Like a far-flung threat of death it crouched, ever-present in the minds of the island's inhabitants. Until now, Vvardenfell alongside its infamous volcano had been no more than a hazy mirage upon the horizon as the _Maiden_ swiftly cut her way through the sea en route to Raven Rock. Tall and inscrutable, the mountain now glowered down upon all, a violent and provocative giant always willing to destroy.

It gave Rush pause to consider how the Dunmer refugees who had sought asylum here since the bleak aftermath of Red Year could _stand_ living always in that monster's shadow. Then, the obvious answer came. They had no choice.

Feeling oddly muted, Rushes stood well back from the busy crew making dock, taking mental note of her supplies. Sword. Armour. Potions. Before her impulsive escape from her sickbed and the College she had also liberated a pot of Colette's cure-all salve from her personal stores, sure in the knowledge the dizzy little Breton would never notice its absence. So far it seemed to be helping the wounds her previous assailants had dealt her.

Which really did bring back the matter at hand, and the grim task ahead.

Stepping off the ship with a wave and a complementary purse of coin that disappeared into Gjalund's hand with supernatural swiftness, Rushes breathed in the briny air of Raven Rock's dilapidated docks with a profound sense of olfactory relief.

It would be late noon by account of the sun's passage across the murky Solsteic skies. Before her lay a town quite ready to call an end to a busy day of labour. No doubt her Dunmeri peers would look upon the questions of a heavily armed Argonian mercenary-type with as much enthusiasm as they would a war band of reavers from one of Salt-Sage's bogus sea tales.

Nonetheless, the Dragonborn had to try. More than her life had been put at stake. Whether it took her a day or a year, she would root out the invisible patron of the cultists, this _Miraak_. She would choke the answers from him and when she could learn no more, she'd roast him alive for his troubles.

Curled nose to tail in quiet repose upon a lonely shore, Qahnaarin rumbled in drowsy approval.


End file.
